News Stories

[SaintessHeart]

Thank you, Canada.

China's Minmetals bows out to Barrick Gold's $7.7 billion

(Reuters) - China's Minmetals Resources bowed out of the battle for copper miner Equinox Minerals on Tuesday, saying Barrick Gold Corp's C$7.3 billion ($7.7 billion) bid was too rich to justify a counter-offer.

Canada's Barrick, the world's largest gold miner, announced its agreed deal for Equinox on Monday, seeking to tap surging demand from China and other developing economies that has pushed copper prices up more than sevenfold in the past eight years.

Minmetals, a government-backed unit of China's largest metals trader, said in a statement it would not top Barrick's offer and would seek other opportunities.

While China's outbound acquisition machine has gained in strength, Beijing follows a strict and price sensitive policy when it comes to doing deals.

"Competing with Barrick at these prices would, in our view, be value destructive for (our) shareholders," Andrew Michelmore, Minmetals' chief executive, said in a statement.

Investors punished Minmetals' cautious approach. It shares plunged as much as 13 percent in Hong Kong on concerns it had missed out on rare, sizeable copper deal -- albeit at a high price.

Barrick's offer values Equinox at a hefty 14 times its 2010 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of $523 million.

Equinox, a global miner listed in Canada and Australia, owns the Lumwana mine in Africa's rich Zambian copper belt and most of the Jabal Sayid project in Saudi Arabia.

An unrelated, weaker-than-expected capital raising by Minmetals in Hong Kong last week was hardly encouraging to the Chinese company, which would need hefting funding in place for the unsolicited C$6.3 billion Equinox offer it announced earlier this month.

The market capitalization of Minmetals, which has a 4.2 percent stake in Equinox, is only around $2.7 billion after the latest fund raising. But because the company is majority controlled by state-owned China Minmetals Non-Ferrous Metals Co Ltd, it could have afforded a counter-bid.

"If it was just a matter of paying whatever it took, they could conceivably have bid for Riversdale in Mozambique, and so on. I don't think they are in that sort of business," said Tom Gidley-Kitchin, analyst at Charles Stanley in London.

Rio Tinto this month won control of coking coal play Riversdale Mining with a $4 billion bid.

Gidley-Kitchin pointed out that Minmetals will remain on the hunt as the Chinese have made clear their intention to acquire rights to minerals, with Africa an area of strong interest across the industry.

"I would definitely say it is not the end of the story," he said, referring to Minmetals' M&A aspirations.

UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY

Barrick offered to buy Equinox for C$8.15 a share, an 8.7 percent premium over its Thursday closing price. The all-cash bid is 16 percent higher than Minmetals' initial offer.

"Resources are scarce and when you have an asset of this size that is producing, it is rare that these types of opportunities come onto the market place," Barrick Chief Executive Aaron Regent told reporters on a conference call before Minmetals pulled out.

Equinox shares jumped 11.6 percent in Toronto on Monday and closed at C$8.37, only about 2.6 percent higher than Barrick's offer, indicating investors were split of a higher offer emerging.

Barrick shares dropped more than 6 percent as investors questioned whether it was overpaying and whether a big move into the industrial metal would make the stock less attractive to those seeking exposure to gold prices.

Australian markets were closed for a public holiday.

Equinox had previously called Minmetals' original C$7-a-share offer a low-ball bid. On Monday, it said it believed the Barrick bid was superior in terms of price and its likelihood of completion.

Minmetals raised about $500 million last week, selling fewer shares at a lower price than planned.

COPPER/GOLD FOCUS

Barrick would use about half of the $4 billion in cash they have on their balance sheet to fund the deal, Regent said. The balance would be funded with debt, revolving credit facilities and new bonds.

Regent, who has a background in base metals, sees the takeover bid as an opportunity to gain access to the Zambian copper belt at a time when copper prices are expected to keep climbing to fresh records. London copper hit an all-time high above $10,000 a tonne in February and traded near $9,700 on Tuesday.

Barrick will double its position in copper with the acquisition while reducing its exposure to gold to 80 percent from a current 90 percent.

Regent said the company's focus remained on copper and gold and that it was not planning on expanding into other commodities at this stage.

Equinox's Lumwana mine is Africa's third-largest copper operation, producing almost 147,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate in 2010. The Jabal Sayid development is due to start production next year. ($1 = 0.954 Canadian Dollars)

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by flying ^

pls don't tell me this is another japan late 80s-early 90s style in the making
http://www.2point6billion.com/news/2...2011-4261.html

"the United Kingdom is at 380 percent"

Wait, what?

From wiki:
"United Kingdom 76.50(% of GDP) 2010 "

That makes me question the reliability of the China figure. They're probably cooking the books, but I doubt they're going to be able to hide that much debt.

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

God... This is huge. I can't even begin to comprehend the huge changes that await for the whole world. I hope that this doesn't lead to war... Sadly, that is most likely the logical outcome.

They're using purchase power parity to adjust China's GDP, but while doing so in itself isn't wrong, with China it's complicated and it can by misleading even in the best cases. While all countries have economic differences in their various reasons, with China there's a HUGE split between the economic conditions among the urban and rural populations, more so than most nations. This complicates the calculation of their PPP. In short, the guy is doomsaying to try to get people to "buy moar gold."

[SaintessHeart]

Facebook, YouTube the new battlegrounds in Singapore elections

(Reuters) - The odds are always stacked against opposition candidates in Singapore elections and for Nicole Seah, a political novice contesting in the backyard of a popular former prime minister, they should be overwhelming.

But are they? The winsome 24-year-old is already the city-state's second-most "liked" politician on Facebook and she enjoys a higher profile than many seasoned campaigners. She has clips on YouTube and is avidly discussed in blogs.

As Singapore gears up for elections on May 7, no one is sure how social media like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter will affect the outcome. What is clear is these outlets are sharply different to the pro-government local newspapers and TV.

"What used to be mere coffee shop talk can now enter the public discourse, for better or worse," says Cherian George, associate journalism professor at Nanyang Technological University.

"Whether it will have any impact and to whose benefit is anyone's guess."

The People's Action Party (PAP), which has ruled Singapore with an iron grip since independence in 1965, usually wins elections by a huge margin. But at the last election in 2006, when it won 82 of 84 seats, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter either did not exist or were in their infancy and confined to the West.

According to the government's Info-communications Development Authority, 81 percent of Singapore households had access to the Internet at the end of 2009.

TOP SOURCE

Facebook is particularly popular in the wealthy Southeast Asian city-state where there are an estimated 2.5 to 3 million users in a population of 5.1 million, according to industry estimates.

In a recent survey by the Straits Times newspaper, 36.3 percent of people between the ages of 21 and 34 cited the Internet as their top source of local political news compared with 35.3 percent who preferred newspapers.

According to local media, "Generation Y" citizens, or those born after 1975, make up one in four voters. And opposition parties have been quick to take note.

"There is this explosion of new media tools and we have been able to use them effectively to reach out and tell the truth about our party and what we stand for," Chee Soon Juan, secretary-general of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), told Reuters.

But despite the Internet's growing reach, Singapore's newspapers and TV stations continue to command a much wider audience. The Straits Times, for example, has an average daily circulation of 350,000 while the Online Citizen, a popular Singapore news and commentary site, gets around 25,000 hits a day.

Singapore Press Holdings, which has a near-monopoly on newspapers in the city-state, follows a strongly pro-government line. MediaCorp, which runs the TV stations, is a unit of state investor Temasek.

Seah, who set up her Facebook page just a week ago, had already received 22,372 "likes" as at 4 pm on April 26, far more than any Singapore politician other than the country's senior statesman Lee Kuan Yew.

Still, that may not be enough for her and her alliance from the National Solidarity Party to unseat the team from the PAP led by former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong in a five-seat, winner-takes-all constituency.

"Social media has been more useful in forging connections between parties and sympathizers, for example, by helping party members identify people they could engage with in party activities," said Giorgos Cheliotis, who teaches communications and new media at the National University of Singapore.

"But I do not think that it has much power in swaying public opinion."

This is my first time voting in an election, and I get this bullshit? What have I done wrong to deserve this? It is incredibly ridiculous that all the new blood this year are nothing more than attention seekers who have good looks and no plans for the future of the country.

Here is an interview to Nicole Seah. I love the strawmen she throws out.

1. The woman you see in her house has no money because there isn't enough social workers to get them to her. I worked as a temp administrator to a a community center before, there simply isn't enough manpower (willing ones to be specific) who wanted to go down and do it. The real policy problem is the red tape because for a single manpower acquisition and outsource, there needs to be at least 5 sets of documents with 2-3 sets of signatures and probably 1 meeting over it, and that is going to take at least a couple of weeks while the staff at the CC pay for the poor person's meals out of their own pockets. By the time it gets through, we don't even fucking want our money back anymore.

2. Not all young people want a stake in this country, especially the males. Go serve NS, and you'll see why.* We are sick and tired of the not only our elders hawking to us about studies and such, but also the inherent limitations of the economy to cater to our passions. Though removing the tax on investment is the first step to allow us to gain a financial freedom to pursue our passions (yeah, I know there are no guarantees), we still don't learn TVM during math classes, and we are still being taught that "borrowing decreases when interest rates go up" bullshit in econs. And why the heck aren't we taught critical thinking in junior college?

3. 5-room flat is not a middle income family. It is lower-end high income. Eating at the coffee shop is bloody damn expensive - it costs $3.00-$4.00 per bowl of food that hardly fills you (I can get stuff from Fairprice supermarket at that value and feed myself for 3 days).

She has good looks and good speech skills, but if she is voted up (most likely because the young voters are rooting for whoever is prettier), I certainly hope she isn't a dumb blonde who can only talk but not plan and analyse. Still, I would encourage anyone who lives in Marine Parade to roll a dice this time round or spoil your vote because the big economic issues of the world (high fuel and food prices, worthlesness of the USD, China's earth metal strategic monopoly - btw thank you Vietnam for resisting their efforts to buy up the foodstuffs) are going to hit Singapore near the end of this year. This ISN'T a time to introduce new candidates, it is a time to stand together and offer ideas on how to tackle impending hyperinflation, potential starvation and investment loss in our neighbouring countries.

Especially Malaysia. We need to tell them that ideas like investing in a statewide email service and refurbishing an unused airport is fucking the entire SEA upside down. With the depreciation of the USD (thank you Bear Stearns), their -6.2% GDP last year is no joke - they can't just export palm oil to prop up the economy for the rest of this decade!

* - The Chief Of Armskote, an in-joke term used for Armskote ICs, are positions run by at least a 3SG. So why the fuck is a Corporal standing in for a duty of a higher rank? A corporal does not have the power to enforce the maintenance of arms because he is unable to recommend or issue charges or ROVWs to his wayward subordinates. This is obviously pigeonholing the worst duties to the bad-attitude troopers with sharp characters as an act of revenge, it is no reward at all.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Facebook, YouTube the new battlegrounds in Singapore elections



This is my first time voting in an election, and I get this bullshit? What have I done wrong to deserve this? It is incredibly ridiculous that all the new blood this year are nothing more than attention seekers who have good looks and no plans for the future of the country.

Could be worse. You could have attention seekers with neither good looks nor plans for the future of the country.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Could be worse. You could have attention seekers with neither good looks nor plans for the future of the country.

The worst thing is that the support she is garnering is the general apathetic bunch of idiots my age who blame the government for everything despite the work they have done.

Singapore has a good government. I would probably say as stable and effective as Swiss, Sweden or Canada's. It is just that the people generally suck.

If you look at this video, she is really making effective use of PR :

Note the forceful tone used at the end all of a sudden. She is not keeping it stable, meaning which she is trying to garner support. Also, look at her expression and eye momentum when she asked the reporter to repeat her question - it is a time-buying technique showing that she hasn't exactly planned or understood the policies her elders put forward.

And these are their policies :

However, the rising cost of living would not be such a pain if our wages are rising fast enough to cope. The single largest factor that prevented our wages from rising is the large supply of foreign workers who are willing to accept lower pay.

This is what helped Singapore to stay competitive dumbass. The low cost of labour brought in investors and MNCs who set up their HQs here. And how can we increase wages when we are not even value adding the stuff we export? Finally, the cost of living is attributed to the global phenomenon - it WILL pass. The problem is how to tide it over.

I have no argument with the foreign worker issues. It is a stalemate until we have Singaporean graduates who are willing to take up lower wages instead of what they think they are worth.

The focus of our economic policies is not so much GDP growth, but wage growth and better quality of life. In our pursuit of economic growth, we need to pay due attention to social costs. Develop industries that better match the abilities and inclinations of our people. Less reliance on industries that compete based on cheap labour, more in those offering higher value-added jobs. For example, build on the progress made in the medical industry to aggressively expand our medical training so that more Singaporeans are trained as doctors, therapists, etc.

The guy who made this statement clearly fails Macroeconomics at even the basic level. Labour is viewed as a supply-demand-price issue idiot - having too many doctors will devalue their worth. And we will always need cheap labour because nobody wants to be a construction worker, and our neighbouring countries aren't stepping up on the pace of their economic development fast enough.

Increase healthcare budget by $1.8b:

$0.8b to build 4 more new hospitals over the next 5 years to increase the total number of hospital beds by 20%.ii)

$1.0b increase for operating subvention (45% increase) provided to the healthcare institutions that goes towards subsidising patient bills to ensure that Singaporean shave access to good and affordable healthcare

The reason why we have a bloody high standard of healthcare is because we pay our doctors hot cash. $1.8b is a no-no right now because we have other fucking problems thanks to Dr Breen Beranake - come back in 3 years time and I'll accept that.

Increased investment in public transport. Capacity of MRT and public buses must be increased immediately. With the rapidly growing population, congestion on the road will only get worse. Public transport must be improved (not just keep up with population growth)significantly to encourage people to switch from private to public transport to ease congestion.19.

Increased funding of $0.5b: To purchase 1000 additional buses to boost the total number of public buses from SBS and SMRT by 25%. These new buses will ply along the MRT lines to alleviate congestion faced by MRT commuters pending the expansion of the capacity of the MRT, as well as congested bus routes. These government-procured buses will be rented to SBS and SMRT. In return, the rent earned would be used to provide subsidised transport to weaker members of the society including the senior citizens and physically disabled, and subsidized transport for all students, including polytechnic and university students.

Sell your cars and take the public transport for a couple of years dummies. The problem is not with the buses, it is EMPLOYMENT. Nobody wants to drive buses around for 8 hours with only 2 toilet breaks.

And if those guys haven't realised, whatever SBS and SMRT earned goes into the pockets of the GIC, who uses it for national investment. It is a money flow cycle that has forgotten to take into account inflation.

Finally, these guys might want to skyrocket the COE and road tax. There are way too many cars on the road.

In 2006, the government raised the GST from 5% to 7%, claiming it is to help the poor. In FY09, it raised an additional amount of $1.9b from the additional 2%. But the increased amount disbursed by funds helping the poor only increased by $0.4b in the same year. See Annex on how changes in our taxation policy has affected the top earners and lower-incomed.

NSP wants to reduce the GST back to 5% to help all citizens,
especially the poor. Basic necessities priced below a certain level should also be exempted from GST.

This will cost the Government an estimated $2.2b each year

Another fail-economics. The lower-incomed are not benefitting because good stuff like WorkFare came too late and they couldn't upgrade fast enough to adapt to the changing sector orientation of Singapore, not because of the GST. The rich-poor income divide reduced back to 5% will damage the economy in the long run - a better option would be a temporary de-tax to 3% for the rest of this year, 5% from January to June next year, and once US stabilises, back to 7%. To make up for that it is time to downsize the number of people working in the government by closing down solely intermediary departments.

Besides Canada pays 12% GST, so why should we complain?

Defence : TL;TMR

Here are some facts :

1. Training and equipment cost more AND are longer to shift Singapore to asymmetric warfare. I have CT training, and given the number of weapons and tactics I am trained in, plus the number of instructors that hammered me PLUS the time taken, I don't think the cost is that low. Besides, I am barely confident of my skills because the syllabus is so compressed, and now they want to reduce the time?

2. The SAF is NOT well-equipped for this role. Our focus went in the right direction of urban warfare and mobility, but the stuff we carry don't match our combat capability. Why doesn't our new rifles have bayonet attachments? Why aren't all of our troops trained in the use of non-lethal/close-range weaponry like tasers, teargas, stun grenades, submachine guns, pistols, shotguns and most importantly, breaching equipment? Why are only the tactical troops and special forces trained only in that? And why the heck do we have to carry a useless heavy rifle that is prone to jamming in fully automatic fire?

3. I don't want to argue about the mission demands because it is a local open secret. But the guy who wrote this is probably a desk-jobber or someone who never even bothered to look through the interesting combat doctrines of the USMC published on Wikileaks. Heck, most likely he didn't even read Roar of the Lion City.

Political leaders should be motivated by a sense of public service, and should not require extremely high remunerations (by international standards) to lure them in and keep them incorrupt.

Read world history, especially that of China, Russia, UK and Iran. Thank you.

And the issue about housing isn't working out because all the politicians are mudslinging each other and avoiding economics as an overall.

[AnimeFan188]

"The FBI has raided the Los Angeles apartment of a Screen Actors Guild member
the bureau believes was first to upload the Oscar-winning movie The King’s
Speech as well as Black Swan, and other in-theater-only films to the Pirate Bay in
January, according to interviews and sealed court records obtained by Wired.com."

See:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...eech-uploader/

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Thank you, Canada.

China's Minmetals bows out to Barrick Gold's $7.7 billion

I have a *large* dollop of suspicion that the "buy mohr gohld" frenzy is a market manipulation on a far larger scale than the silver market scam of the 80s. At $1500USD/oz or over a 1000EUR.... my gut says a lot of small investors are going to take it in the shorts, up through the shorts, and all the way up to the esophagus.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Vexx

I have a *large* dollop of suspicion that the "buy mohr gohld" frenzy is a market manipulation on a far larger scale than the silver market scam of the 80s. At $1500USD/oz or over a 1000EUR.... my gut says a lot of small investors are going to take it in the shorts, up through the shorts, and all the way up to the esophagus.

buy potatoes

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by bladeofdarkness

You make it sound like being arrested by this regime for the charge of trying to rebel against it is the preferable option.
keep in mind that theres not going to be anyone pressing for their release.

I know than those will probably ''dissapear'' if the current regime stay in power, at least there a little hope for them.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

buy potatoes

Buy chocolate. The Chinese nouveaux riches will want luxury chocolates. And if not and the market crashes, you can eat them yourself till you feel better.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Buy chocolate. The Chinese nouveaux riches will want luxury chocolates. And if not and the market crashes, you can eat them yourself till you feel better.

i rather sell fake 100 year bottle of wine higher profit margins.

[killer3000ad]

Playstation Network hacked,private user data stolen

Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID," Sony's Patrick Seybold wrote in a message being sent to all registered PSN account holders. "It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained.
.....
If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

Spoiler:

PSN has been down since April 20 and they waited nearly a week to tell their 70 million subscribers.

[Tom Bombadil]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

i rather sell fake 100 year bottle of wine higher profit margins.

That's actually a great idea. There is no way they can tell the difference, right?Most are just buying the prestige anyway. In my limited experience, I can't tell apart of a $8 bottle or a $30 bottle at all.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

buy potatoes

And plug wires into them and sell them as 1.1v potato batteries.

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by killer3000ad

Playstation Network hacked,private user data stolen

Spoiler:

PSN has been down since April 20 and they waited nearly a week to tell their 70 million subscribers.

Yeah, frankly, I'm pretty pissed off about this, especially considering I have to go and change my debit card now, and I have to do it from overseas too.

[SaintessHeart]

Analysis: Barrick bid suggests copper will be the new gold

Another hype - 4 more days till the end of this month, so sell in May and go away.

Sometimes I wonder if somebody is manipulating the metals market, or it is just that the metals market is full of metalheads.

News Corp seeks Myspace bids over $100 million: source

Web 2.0 bubble anyone?

China is an attractive place to invest: Carlyle Group co-founder (1:53)

Please don't invest in their property market. I don't want another asset bubble that takes out the entire EA and turn China into another Three Kingdoms.

[killer3000ad]

Turkey warns Israel against repeating 'flotilla mistake'

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu urges Israel not to stop next Gaza-bound flotilla. 'The Mediterranean does not belong to any nation,' he says.

[Ithekro]

Israel still has their 12 mile limit as defined by international law.

[ganbaru]

Yemen deal may be done within week: officials
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...73L1PP20110426
We are lucky not to get the syrian or the libyan situation here.

[MrTerrorist]

Syria violence: US warns citizens to leave

This is an interesting line i read from a Deraa resident.

"Let Obama come and take Syria, let Israel come and take Syria, let the Jews come - anything is better than Bashar Assad."